The Cake Slice: Johnny C’s Tres Leches Cake

Who is Johnny C? Yeah, I don’t know. What’s a tres leches cake? That I do know! “Tres leches” actually refers to a soaking sauce usually made of condensed, evaporated and regular milks (sometimes coconut milk or cream gets in there, too) that soaks its way into every pore of a spongy cake. As a self-proclaimed connoisseur of fine cakes from around the globe, pastel de tres leches is truly one of my favorites.

This recipe, though…well, it wasn’t a bad one, but an old coworker, who’s from Columbia, gave me the recipe his sister makes for every family gathering, and I think it’s much better. While this cake is made using the creaming method, hers is more of a separated egg sponge, and it really takes in the soaking liquid in a different way. When you put a fork into hers, you see how spongy and it is, and the milk just barely starts to weep out…it turns almost puddingy if you keep it overnight. Johnny C’s absorbed the milk and just trapped it there…it was a little too heavy for my tastes, but I’ll admit it was much improved with a little rum whipped cream (then again, what isn’t?).

I’ll stick to my preferred version of pastel de tres leches (I’ll post it sometime, I promise!), but if you want to give Johnny C’s a go, here’s a printable link to the recipe, or get your hands on a copy of Southern Cakesby Nancie McDermott. Cruise through the list of The Cake Slice Bakers to check out all of our tres leches cakes this month!

I would love to try your preferred tres leches recipe 🙂 I was pleasantly surprised by this month’s cake, but then again, it was the first tres leches cake I’ve ever made/had, so I didn’t really have any point of reference.

I agree with you about the texture of the cake. I’ve made and have tasted many others and while this one was good, it was not great. I changed mine up a bit and made a chocolate version- it was good but the texture as you said was definitely different.